


Strange Creatures

by Traincat



Category: DCU (Comics), Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-12
Updated: 2014-11-12
Packaged: 2018-02-25 02:41:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2605616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Traincat/pseuds/Traincat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Damian was admittedly apprehensive about the whole brother thing in the beginning. It was only reasonable – he’d declined Father’s offer of a night at the circus in favor of training, and then hours later the news had come in that he was to have a new little brother.</p><p>“Father,” he said, grip on the phone gone slack, “I thought Pennyworth and I had talked to you about these kinds of indiscretions.”</p><p>-</p><p>prequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/170553">affection (brotherly and otherwise)</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Strange Creatures

**Author's Note:**

> It's 1AM and that's international fic amnesty hour! [actualwizardbillykaplan](actualwizardbillykaplan.tumblr.com) sent me an ask about my [big bro!Damian Young Justice fic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/170553), and rifling through my docs I realized I had a prequel more or less written, so I dusted it off and here it is. It's not necessary to read that one in order to understand this - it's a role reversal, with Damian as the older brother and Dick as the younger.
> 
> This was written in about 2011, which probably means it was in response to something on the old YJ LJ meme, but I no longer have a link to whatever prompt it was originally meant for.

“What strange creatures brothers are!”  
― Jane Austen

Damian was admittedly apprehensive about the whole brother thing in the beginning. It was only reasonable – he’d declined Father’s offer of a night at the circus in favor of training, and then hours later the news had come in that he was to have a new little brother.

“Father,” he said, grip on the phone gone slack, “I thought Pennyworth and I had talked to you about these kinds of indiscretions.”

\--

It had not been one of those indiscretions. 

Damian wasn’t surprised when he heard Father’s tale. A sabotaged trapeze act, two fallen acrobats and their screaming orphan. 

He knew, of course, of the circumstances surrounding the deaths of his grandparents. He knew how it had affected Father. It wasn’t the fact that Father saw something of himself in the child that was a surprise, so much as Father’s ensuing actions.

“ _Adoption_?” Damian spit out, hackles raised. “You’re _adopting_ him?”

Father gave him the look, the one he got when he felt that Damian was missing something particularly vital to a case.

“This isn’t up for discussion,” Father said. Damian narrowed his eyes; things were rarely up for discussion where Father was concerned. “He needs us, Damian.” 

“And what, pray tell, will we say about where we go at night? All the strange disappearances, the injuries? You can only walk into so many doors, Father,” Damian said, throwing his arms out. “What if he finds the cave? When it’s quiet you can hear the bats upstairs, you know!” 

Father stared at him for a long moment. 

“Ah,” he said at last. Damian folded his arms over his chest.

“Ah, what?” he said, suspicious. Father’s expression had shifted from scrutiny to something disturbingly like fondness. It wasn’t rare for Father to look fond, exactly, just that the cave was hardly the place for it. Damian didn’t mind. It was a clear separation between work and personal matters, and he liked that.

“Alfred said you might react like this,” Father said, always cryptic. To Damian’s horror, he reached out and gently ruffled his hair. 

“What are you doing?” he hissed. 

“You know you’ll always be my son, Damian,” Father said, and attempted a smile. “You don’t have to worry that you’re being replaced.”

Damian stared up at him, face twisted up, and tried to think of some way to articulate the barrage of feelings he was experiencing – none of which, he would like to note, included fear of being replaced.

“I – you – this is a _terrible_ idea!” he exclaimed, ducking out from under Father’s hand. He stormed up the steps and out of the cave.

\--

Richard Grayson was not what Damian had been expecting. 

Damian eyed him from the kitchen doorway, scowling when the child clung to Father’s hand. From behind him, Pennyworth cleared his throat.

“Master Damian,” he said. “It seems to me you could observe your new brother much better if you were in the same room.” 

Damian slanted a glare Pennyworth’s way, and dug his heels firmly into the ground. 

“I will not be moved,” he said. Pennyworth raised a delicate eyebrow.

“Damian,” Father’s voice wafted in from the next room. “Come here for a moment.” 

Damian exchanged a brief glance with Pennyworth – taking in the glimmer of amusement in his eyes, the slightest lift of the corners of his lips – and said, “Don’t.”

“Perish the thought,” Pennyworth returned. 

The child was smaller than any eight-year-old had a right to be, with jet black hair and big blue eyes. He really could have been Damian’s brother, on first glance. He had his hands fisted in Father’s pant leg, half hidden behind him. If something twinged in Damian’s chest, well. Stranger things had happened. 

“Damian,” Father said, settling one hand on the child’s skinny shoulder. “This is Dick.”

And that was that. It was done, or as good as it, anyway, and there was no point in pretending or denying. Damian knew Father, and when Father made up his mind then everyone else had better follow or face the consequences.

\--

It would be a lie to say it all went smoothly from there. To be fair, that was not entirely Richard’s fault. Nothing in Damian’s life ever seemed to go smoothly.

There was, for instance, what Pennyworth dryly referred to as “sibling rivalry”, and Damian referred to as “Richard’s poor sense of personal boundaries.” Then, the time with the vase. Not to mention the incident at Gotham Academy, or the one at one of Father’s numerous charity balls. And, of course, the fact that, eventually, Richard discovered the cave, and the costumes, and the secret identities. Which, of course, led to a secret identity of his own.

“I told you this was a terrible idea,” Damian said to Father the first time Richard tried to sew his own cape. 

“I never discouraged you,” Father said, simply. 

“That is completely different,” Damian said. 

“Well, you never did try to sew your own costume,” Father said, sounding amused. Damian looked up to find that Richard had sewn the cape – sloppily – to his own shirt. 

"Tt," hissed Damian, and went to find the seam ripper.

\--

The first time Richard was injured was a turning point. If he were being honest, Damian would have to say that he didn’t remember what led up to it. All he knew was this: he saw Richard reel backwards, the color drained from his face, and then Damian was on the man before he had even fully registered the flash of the knife or Richard's pained gasp.

Father had to pull him off. They must have looked absolutely ridiculous, with Father holding bleeding Richard in one arm and reeling Damian in by his cape. 

“That’s enough,” Father was saying, in a voice hard as steel. “That’s enough! He’s unconscious.”

Damian’s breathing was loud in his own ears, the constant noise of Gotham a distant ringing.

Quietly, Father said, “That’s enough.” 

\--

Damian spent a long time standing under the spray of the shower, the water hot enough to sting. Eventually, when he could close his eyes and not see Richard crumple backwards, he climbed out. He wiped the fog from his mirror and stared at his reflection for a long moment, searching his face for – something. He wasn’t quite sure what.

He dressed quickly and entered his bedroom. 

There was a chest at the foot of his bed. It was ornately carved and it smelled just like Mother’s perfume. Damian found it impossible not to think of her face when he touched it, not to remember the feel of her hand at the back of his neck. 

He breathed in deep, then undid the lock.

\--

Richard was sitting in the kitchen with ice cream. He was swathed in bandages, wrapped around his chest and over his shoulder and he seemed to small like that, all fragile bird bones. 

“How are you feeling?” Damian asked. Richard looked up with a wince. His smile was tired and pale and Damian wished he would just _stop_ , but of course he wouldn’t. Richard smiled too freely and too often and he had just been _stabbed_.

“Better,” Richard said. He had ice cream at the corner of his mouth. Damian quietly despaired. “I’m supposed to go straight to bed after this, though.” 

“I have something for you,” Damian said. He took the sword out from behind his back and knelt by Richard’s chair, balancing it across one knee. Richard’s eyes went wide. “My mother gave it to me when I was younger and now I want you to have it.” 

Richard looked from the sword to Damian and back again.

“I can’t,” he said, but he rested the fingers of his good arm on the scabbard. “It’s a gift from your mom.”

“It was,” Damian replied, placing the sword across Richard’s lap. In a voice that brooked no argument he said, “And now it is my gift to you.” 

\--

The other sidekicks were a mistake. Damian had never cared for them personally, only working with them when situations forced his hand, or when Father insisted. The fact of the matter was that they were different – he was different. Set apart. He had what they did not – blood, and a legacy. 

Green Arrow’s partner was alright, he supposed, awful taste in codenames aside. Damian had worked with him the most; they were close in age and there was a silent, stony sort of understanding between them. They didn’t have to like each other to work together. 

Kid Flash was an entirely different story. Kid Flash was loud and irritating and hadn’t quite worked out how to put the brakes on his powers. Damian had vivid fantasies about pushing him off a roof.

Of course he and Richard got along wonderfully. 

“I can’t believe you approve of this,” Damian said to Father. Father gave him The Look over the top of his newspaper.

“The Flash is a valuable ally,” he said. He worked his jaw for a moment before adding, “And a friend. I’m sure we can put the same faith in his sidekick. Alfred says it might do Dick some good to spend some time with another boy his own age. You know the family rule about arguing with Alfred.”

Damian scowled. 

“I still don’t like it,” he declared and Father shook his head.

“You, not liking something,” he said. “Who would’ve thought we’d see the day.”

\--

“Well, it’s not that you’re _crazy_ ,” Colin said earnestly. It was bizarre experience, his cheerful tone in Abuse’s deep, gravelly voice. Comforting, in a strange way. 

Damian grabbed one of their targets and flipped him over onto the hard concrete. A second tried to sneak up on him and he snarled, smashing him in the face with an elbow. 

“You’re just intense,” Colin said. He shoved a third man into a wall.

“Very,” the man Damian had flipped muttered to the sidewalk. Damian stepped on him, just because. He was just contemplating whether or not breaking a few fingers would be over the line when Father’s voice came over the communicator, stiff and disapproving. Damian removed his foot from the man’s hand immediately. 

“Hold that thought,” Damian muttered, hand going to the tiny earpiece he always wore in costume. “Yes?”

Father’s explanation was clipped and to the point. Damian made the appropriate noises at the right places, and promised he would be home soon before he cut off the call. 

He turned to Colin.

“I have to go,” he said. “Robin’s blown up a secret laboratory.”

"Wow. Uh, yeah, I can handle things here," Colin said, blinking. "Is he okay?"

"Not after I'm done with him, he won't be," Damian muttered, cape flapping at his heels as he turned.

"Go easy on him!" Colin called after him, accompanied by the shriek of a grown man. "For me!" 

Damian hated how he probably would.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[PODFIC] Strange Creatures by Traincat](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6381355) by [Vodka112](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vodka112/pseuds/Vodka112)




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